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Why is nature a somehow extraordinary claim and nurture is not? That was my question. "a tendency to adorn" is not the same as "a tendency to adorn oneself wit

Why is nature a somehow extraordinary claim and nurture is not? That was my question. "a tendency to adorn" is not the same as "a tendency to adorn oneself with jewelry" The latter is a subset of the former, OK. But I completely don't see the relevance.

detcader 12y ago
The most complex kinds of objects that chimpanzees craft are tools. To posit that a psychological propensity for pieces of jewelry (a human invention) is inborn in only women is extraordinary and reeks of post-hoc logic. To posit that it is cultural meme is obviously not. Do you not understand this intuitively? Are you being 100% honest with me?
- andrewflnr 12y ago
  I think you're fighting a strawman here. The "human invention" part is what led the other commenters to generalize from "jewelry" to "adornment", which is a more accurate expression of the idea anyway. In this theory, jewelry is only a close-to-hand vehicle for expressing deeper inborn urges, also satisfied by elaborate clothing, hairstyles, hats and head-dresses, war paint, etc. Further, it's not present only in women, it just seems stronger. Given the obvious morphological and other behavior differences between men and women, it's entirely plausible that such a thing could be inborn.
  - detcader 12y ago
    Most of the world population is religious (or was for most of civilization's history, if the scales have tipped recently) -- perhaps we should assume that belief in God is inborn? I will break it down if that doesn't suffice: Before women and men were women and men, they were girls and boys growing up in whatever cultural atmosphere they were born into; and every culture worldwide has a policy of showering newborn and infant girls with "adornment" while withholding it from boys. This is trivial observation -- I invite you to visit your nearest toystore (look at children on the boxes if you're having trouble) and report back to me otherwise.
    - guard-of-terra 12y ago
      "perhaps we should assume that belief in God is inborn?" Why wouldn't we? If humans had zero inborn aptitude for religious (mystical, rithualistic) feelings, how could religions arise? Assuming humans are inborn with christianity is baseless; but assuming humans are inborn with religious drive is logical.
      - detcader 12y ago
        Not at all, actually. Douglas Adams dispensies with this notion in his 1998 Digital Biota 2 speech, in the paragraphs starting with "Where does the idea of God come from?" [1] [1] http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/ http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/
        andrewflnr 12y ago
        With apologies for the ham-handed editing: ...a question which ... only comes about because of the nature of the sort of person he is, the sort of person he has evolved into and the sort of person who has thrived because he thinks this particular way. Man the maker looks at his world and says 'So who made this then?' Who made this? Not only is that an inborn motivation, but if you take away the assumption that there is no god, it's consistent with the Christian view of the whole "everyone knows there's a God" issue. I won't speak for guard-of-terra, but that's close enough for me. It's also in line with the kind of thing I'm talking about in regard to fundamental differences between men and women, in terms of baseness (if that's not an abuse of that word). That said, thanks for the interesting read. I think we've said all that can be said without repeating ourselves or talking past each other, so I'm done.
    - andrewflnr 12y ago
      You're practically making my argument for me. Pretty much every culture is more concerned with adorning its females than males. How can that be without an underlying, enduring reason? You keep pointing to the self-reinforcing cycle, but how does it start, the same way everywhere? For similar reasons, yes, it seems clear that there is something about us that drives us to religion. I'm pretty sure I would believe that even if I wasn't already a Christian.

detcader 12y ago

The most complex kinds of objects that chimpanzees craft are tools. To posit that a psychological propensity for pieces of jewelry (a human invention) is inborn in only women is extraordinary and reeks of post-hoc logic. To posit that it is cultural meme is obviously not. Do you not understand this intuitively? Are you being 100% honest with me?

andrewflnr 12y ago
I think you're fighting a strawman here. The "human invention" part is what led the other commenters to generalize from "jewelry" to "adornment", which is a more accurate expression of the idea anyway. In this theory, jewelry is only a close-to-hand vehicle for expressing deeper inborn urges, also satisfied by elaborate clothing, hairstyles, hats and head-dresses, war paint, etc. Further, it's not present only in women, it just seems stronger. Given the obvious morphological and other behavior differences between men and women, it's entirely plausible that such a thing could be inborn.
- detcader 12y ago
  Most of the world population is religious (or was for most of civilization's history, if the scales have tipped recently) -- perhaps we should assume that belief in God is inborn? I will break it down if that doesn't suffice: Before women and men were women and men, they were girls and boys growing up in whatever cultural atmosphere they were born into; and every culture worldwide has a policy of showering newborn and infant girls with "adornment" while withholding it from boys. This is trivial observation -- I invite you to visit your nearest toystore (look at children on the boxes if you're having trouble) and report back to me otherwise.
  - guard-of-terra 12y ago
    "perhaps we should assume that belief in God is inborn?" Why wouldn't we? If humans had zero inborn aptitude for religious (mystical, rithualistic) feelings, how could religions arise? Assuming humans are inborn with christianity is baseless; but assuming humans are inborn with religious drive is logical.
    - detcader 12y ago
      Not at all, actually. Douglas Adams dispensies with this notion in his 1998 Digital Biota 2 speech, in the paragraphs starting with "Where does the idea of God come from?" [1] [1] http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/ http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/
      - andrewflnr 12y ago
        With apologies for the ham-handed editing: ...a question which ... only comes about because of the nature of the sort of person he is, the sort of person he has evolved into and the sort of person who has thrived because he thinks this particular way. Man the maker looks at his world and says 'So who made this then?' Who made this? Not only is that an inborn motivation, but if you take away the assumption that there is no god, it's consistent with the Christian view of the whole "everyone knows there's a God" issue. I won't speak for guard-of-terra, but that's close enough for me. It's also in line with the kind of thing I'm talking about in regard to fundamental differences between men and women, in terms of baseness (if that's not an abuse of that word). That said, thanks for the interesting read. I think we've said all that can be said without repeating ourselves or talking past each other, so I'm done.
  - andrewflnr 12y ago
    You're practically making my argument for me. Pretty much every culture is more concerned with adorning its females than males. How can that be without an underlying, enduring reason? You keep pointing to the self-reinforcing cycle, but how does it start, the same way everywhere? For similar reasons, yes, it seems clear that there is something about us that drives us to religion. I'm pretty sure I would believe that even if I wasn't already a Christian.